Reams have been written about General Musharraf''s visit to New Delhi and a wearyingly familiar pattern has begun once again to emerge in the writings. While the Indian media have greeted the joint declaration with a satisfaction that borders on euphoria the Pakistani media have been cautious to the point of pessimism. "The joint statement ... clearly points to one conclusion: The Pakistani leadership has succumbed to the pressure to proceed with the normalisation of relations with India and put the core dispute of Kashmir on the backburner," says an editorial in the conservative English daily The Nation. Even liberal newspapers and columnists have expressed the fear that General Musharraf may have given away too much and gained very little in return.

These reactions, which are based solely upon an enumeration of the various confidence building measures that Musharraf agreed to, miss the wood for the trees. The fact is that the Delhi meetings have achieved a breakthrough in India''s relations with Pakistan of almost unimaginable importance: Prime minister Manmohan Singh has succeeded in winning President Musharraf''s trust. In doing so he has placed an enormous burden of obligation upon himself and upon India: We must now prove ourselves worthy of that trust and find ways of reciprocating it. The misgivings being expressed in Pakistan and the satisfaction, bordering upon complacency, being expressed in India arise from perceiving only the first half of this pact.

Musharraf has not bestowed his trust lightly. As Kargil and the Agra summit showed, he is not a dove on India-Pakistan relations. But as President of Pakistan he bore the brunt of 9/11 and was the first to realise that coping with it required far reaching changes in policy. That is why he lost no time in grasping Prime minister Vajpayee''s proffered hand of friendship in 2003.

Since then, however, Musharraf has appeared to be making most of the concessions. This is a direct outcome of the stark opposition between the two countries'' starting positions. Pakistan has always held that Kashmir is the core dispute and must be dealt with first. India has maintained that other issues should be resolved first, in order to create an atmosphere conducive to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. In 1997 the two countries committed themselves to a ''composite dialogue'' in which all issues would be dealt with simultaneously.

This process was revived in 2003 but since Kashmir is by far the most complex and sensitive of all the issues whatever little progress there has been has taken place on other issues. Since the underlying difference of approach remained and was reflected, among other things, in India offering a plethora of CBMs but remaining silent on Kashmir, Pakistan continued to regard New Delhi''s overtures with suspicion and dragged its feet over responding to its proposals. India therefore reacted sharply and negatively to every statement on Kashmir that emanated from Islamabad.

The change began when President Musharraf met Dr Manmohan Singh in New York. What they said to each other has been only sketchily reported, but it is significant that Musharraf did not call off the dialogue when Dr Singh told him unambiguously that a change in borders was not possible. Pakistan''s reaction was restrained even when he repeated this in Srinagar in November. The only explanation was that Dr Singh had laid out an alternative approach to resolving the Kashmir dispute that had appealed sufficiently to Gen. Musharraf to keep the dialogue alive.

The alternative, we gradually learned, was a ''people-centred approach'' that shifted the emphasis from demarcating territorial boundaries to increasing the freedom and welfare of the Kashmiris. This required a progressive softening of the LoC and progressively removing consular and other barriers that prevented Kashmiris in both parts of the old state from meeting, trading and discussing common problems with each other. If this process did not meet any roadblocks, it would end in virtually eliminating the divide between the two parts of Kashmir, at least for the Kashmiris.

President Musharraf obviously found this approach sufficiently attractive to accept it. Having done so he pushed ahead with characteristic decisiveness. As Dr Singh pointed out to a group of Indian editors on Monday, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service would never have got off the ground without his direct intervention. India too might not have agreed to participate in the Iranian gas pipeline project had the prime minister not taken a personal interest in it. But every step towards the normalisation of relations without a direct engagement on Kashmir reinforced fears in the Pakistani security establishment that India was trying to make it accept the LoC by the back door. These reached a crescendo with the reopening of the Jhelum road across the LoC. President Musharraf decided that the only way to end the ambiguity was to broach the subject directly with the Indian prime minister. Before coming to Delhi he made it clear that he wanted to establish a time frame for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. He also intended to broach the issue of the Baglihar dam. Dr Singh apparently convinced the general that there could be no time frame for the resolution of the dispute because it was a process. Each step in it depended upon the completion of the previous step, and there was no way of accurately predicting how long that would take. But he did lay out his road map for the resolution of the dispute. He explained what that was in a meeting with Indian, and some Pakistani, editors organised by the Editors'' Guild, on Monday. "Territorial disputes are very difficult to resolve, and take a long time", he began. Then, explaining in detail what his people-centered approach envisaged, he added, "I do not know how long this process will take, and I cannot predict where it will lead to, but each step that we complete will unfold new possibilities that we cannot see at this time. If Kashmiris from both sides are free to meet and talk to each other they may come up with proposals that we can look at."

The drawback of any prolonged process is that it is fraught with uncertainty. Carrying it through to a successful conclusion requires steadfastness of purpose in the leaders and an absence of severe, unforeseen shocks. After two generations of conflict, conservatives in Pakistan can be forgiven if they doubt the existence of the former in New Delhi.

Conversely as respect for Musharraf has risen in India, so has fear of unforeseen developments that could topple him from power. But President Musharraf was not deterred by the uncertainty because he detected in Dr Manmohan Singh, the steadfastness of purpose and sincerity that he had been looking for. That is why he has bestowed his trust on the Indian prime minister.

India now needs to prove itself worthy of it. Dr Singh has already taken the first steps in that direction by calling for a review of the Baglihar dam project. An unstated purpose of the review is to allay the Pakistan army''s fear that in its present form the Baglihar dam will make it possible for India to cut off the supply of water to Pakistan for long enough in winter to dry out the canals on which Pakistan depends for her defence against Indian armour. This fear, which might have been valid in the ''70s when it was first voiced, is now irrational because there is another dam, the Sallal, south of Baglihar on the Chenab. But if it is possible to allay this apprehension without seriously reducing the power generating potential of the dam, India is likely to do so.

Another area in which Dr Singh has shown his readiness to met Pakistan''s concerns is trade. Told by the General that India''s offer of most favoured nation status had been almost completely negated by the plethora of non-tariff barriers that it had erected to imports from Pakistan, he said that this was news to him and immediately asked for a report on the NTBs.

However, New Delhi has not moved on the third and most important front — the opening of a dialogue with the Hurriyat leaders even after they expressed their desire to meet the prime minister. Until it does so India''s intentions will remain suspect.

* The author, a noted analyst and commentator, is a former editor of the Hindustan Times, The Economic Times and The Financial Express, and a former information adviser to the prime minister of India. He is the author of several books including, The Perilous Road to the Market: The Political Economy of Reform in Russia, India and China, and Kashmir 1947: The Origins of a Dispute, and a regular columnist with several leading publications.